Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Guardian Ad Litems

The order that appointed the GAL may have specified something different, but the baseline for a GAL report is that it is required 60 days before trial. A court may require the guardian ad litem to provide periodic reports to the parties regarding the status of the investigation. Why the report is late, may affect how a court will look at the lateness. If the GAL has a good reason for lateness, e.g. waiting on test results or reports from other professionals, that may explain the situation, whether the GAL has kept the court and parties informed of the situation and delay may affect how the court looks at this situation. Without knowing more about what the alleged unprofessional conduct is, it is difficult to say what the best approach to addressing it may be. There are several options not necessarily exclusive of each other: ask the court to remove the GAL from the case, file a grievance with the county registry of approved GALs, if the conduct is criminal report it to the sheriff. A big question here is whether there is evidence of specific unprofessional conduct.

Re: Guardian Ad Litems

I agree with Mr. Steuart. That said, when a court says "do a drug test" and you spend one minute hesitating about doing it, the court is going to presume that your hesitation comes because you will fail the test. The sooner you do the test the sooner this litigation will end.

Hope this helps. Elizabeth Powell